The Future Is Here
We may earn a commission from links on this page

Start Memorizing Your Six-Digit iPhone Passcode

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

If you have an Apple device new enough to have TouchID, you’ll need to start thinking of new passcodes for iOS 9. Apple is getting rid of the four-digit passcode* in its upcoming software upgrade.

*Correction: I didn’t look through the options closely enough before hitting publish. While the new default is six-digits, you can still use a four-digit passcode if you click “Passcode Options” Thanks to commenters to pointing that out. I did a stupid.

Advertisement

Apple is encouraging stronger passwords by requiring at least six digits and allowing longer alphanumeric strings. This will make passcode-protected phones harder to crack, since there will be 1 million permutations of the passcode instead of 10,000.

It’s an improvement, but it’s far from truly secure. For starters, horrible six-digit passwords like “123456” remain oddly common considering it’s 2015, and they’re even worse than a decent four-digit jumble of numbers. Brute force attacks will take longer, but a six-digit code is still vulnerable.

Advertisement
Advertisement

You could take advantage of Apple’s maximum passcode character limit and come up with a passphrase, but having to type in a complicated passphrase every time you want to check your phone would probably be very annoying. The passcode option is still optional, so if you want to play with thief-friendly fire you can just opt out altogether.

Using the TouchID function and Apple’s new two-factor authentication in addition to creating a slightly longer passphrase that is absolutely not “111111” or [pet name] [your birthday] is the sanest choice.

[Ars Technica]


Contact the author at kate.knibbs@gizmodo.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: FF8F 0D7A AB19 6D71 C967 9576 8C12 9478 EE07 10C